Question about "breaking in" a new barrel ?

[davec2]

I know someone here will have the answer to this question......When I built my first long rifle (with a home made lock and a Dixie Gun Works barrel) 50 years ago, I went to sight it in.  I had heard from somewhere that I needed to just shoot 50 or a 100 rounds through the barrel to "break it in" before I started to really sight it in.  I didn't pay any attention to that advice and I started to shoot.  I shot....and shot....and shot.....and, for the life of me, could not get the rifle to group at all.  Finally, after a lot of rounds through the tube, I noticed that the rifle started to group fairly nicely and I was finally able to get the sights adjusted to point of aim.

So my question to all of you much more experienced builders and shooters......does shooting a barrel for a while get it to "settle in" make any sense ?

The reason I ask is that I had an opportunity to go shoot for the first time in a long time.  I took out my English rifle (with a .58 caliber new Rice barrel) to shoot it for the first time.  With a .570 swaged ball, pillow ticking, and 100 grains of Goex, I could not get as far as adjusting the sights because I could not get a respectable group in the first 20 rounds at 50 yards    

[rich pierce]

The little I know is that if you have intact patches the rifle should shoot well.  If not, forget it.  In the past some barrels had sharp edges to the new rifling and would cut patches till worn in a bit, by shooting maybe 100 rounds. Other approaches included “fire lapping” (loading patches with lapping compound, loading patched ball, and shooting 10-20 shots) or simply lapping with a tight patch on a jag, impregnated with lapping compound, 100-200 full length passes. Don Getz used to recommend a smaller jag and green scotchbrite pad as a patch, maybe 100 passes. Some prefer this be done from the breech end.

The crown can also be an issue if patches are being cut. Plenty of posts on that.

But if patches look good, poor accuracy is a mystery.

[smallpatch]

I have never had a Rice barrel that needed to be broken in.  I do remember 20 or so years ago having Green Mr barrels and Colerain barrels that required some break in period.
I just can't see telling a client that he'd have to put 100+ rounds to a barrel to get it to shoot.
Here's a good example.
First 7 rounds out of a new barrel, no load development.

[EC121]

Try a thicker patch and smaller ball.   The deep rifling of the Rice barrels needs to be filled and still leave enough room to compress the patch at the top of the land or muzzle without cutting.   

[LynnC]

Id go with the Don Getz reccomended scotchbright scrubbing

[alacran]

Never had a Rice barrel that wouldn't shoot right out of the mailing tube. I believe it was Liston Rice that said his barrels shot very well
with balls that .005 under bore size.
That being said. you said you haven't shot in a long time. Why start at 50 yards with a new gun?
Take a rifle you know and shoot well and shoot it at 50 yards. See how well you shoot it.
A lot of shooting problems arise form neglecting practice. Just saying.

[Hungry Horse]

Well, back in the day the second tier quality barrels likely had the mailing label on them before the last pass of the cutter cleared the barrel. Those barrels most definitely needed some breaking in. The ones I used the most were from Dixie, but there were other little makers that left barrels pretty rough as well. Mostly they just needed either a good lapping, or to be shot about a hundred shots. The early Lyman Great Plains rifles needed it also. They always seemed to be a little rough at the breech. A good friend built four Great Plains kits, and was shocked when the third one didn’t need any break in time. Another thing that eliminated much of this was button rifling.

  Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

Dave, I cannot remember EVER having to 'shoot a barrel in" before it would shoot well.  Right off the bat they shoot well.
The rice barrel, if rounded rifling, will likely need a .575" ball and .022" denim (or even thicker) patching to do it's best.  It
should also shoot fairly well with ticking (.018" or thicker) and a .570" ball, but a larger ball would most certainly work better.
I'm with smallpatch and others who expect good shooting, right off the bat.  I'd likely try 85gr. to start with, but if strictly a
hunting rifle, I understand the desire to use a hunting-type load.  The heavier the charge, the higher the pressure and thus
the tighter the ball and patch combination must be to maintain it's integrity.  Did you 'check' the fired patches for scorches,
cutting or burn-through. Not finding shot patches is usually an indicator of total annihilation of the patch.
Hope this helps.

[LynnC]

In the original post I missed the part about it being a Rice barrel. If i remember correctly the rifle the barrel then pull a carbide button thru to iron out any imperfections. It shouldn't need the ole scotch bright treatment. Sorry if I steered you off course 

[Marcruger]

Hi Dave,  I think you left a piece out of the equation....what is the rifling type please?  Round bottom or square? 

If round bottom, Daryl (typically sharp) is right on point.  Rice cuts their round grooves deep - something like .016.  It makes for a bit more work than shallower square bottom to get to work well in my experience. 

With those deep round grooves, it is a balancing act.  1) You need fat enough patching to fill those deep grooves.  2) You need a fat enough ball to shove the patching into those deep grooves.  3) You need a combination that can be started and seated (Daryl's crowning method helps).  Getting all three of those at one time is the trick.  I wish they'd switch to .012 round bottom like Colerain.  My Rice barrel is square bottom, but I have direct experience with the round bottom ones. 

If you have square bottom rifling, then we are on a different topic.  My Rice barrel likes .018 dense canvas cotton patching and a 5 under ball.  Starts tough, but goes down easy when using wet lube (Hoppe's BP lube or similar). 

Have you been recovering your patches?  Are they blowing apart?  That could be the culprit. 

Happy to help in any way I can.  God Bless,  Marc

[davec2]

As I expected, a lot of good advice here and I appreciate it all.  By the way, this is the English rifle in question......https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=34719.0

To fill in a couple of blanks, the barrel has round bottom rifling and I was using Hoppe's #9 black powder patch lube (very wet).  The pillow ticking I was using is about 0.012" thick.  I had some denim that measures 0.015 thick but did not get a chance to try it.  The muzzle crown looks like this



So I don't think it is a crown or radius problem but the patch is almost certainly too thin and / or the ball is too small....or both.  The recovered patches looked good but a few did have small cuts that looked like they were made by a sharp edge on the rifling.  I will take pictures next time and submit them to you guys for forensic analysis...

As far as shooting skill goes, that was my first assumption.....that I had not been at this in a while and might be pulling my shots randomly.  However, I switched over to the .36 caliber copy of a Jim Chambers rifle I had built a while back (https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=37186.0) and tried that for a while.  Using a .350 ball, same ticking patch, same lube, and 40 grains of 3F Shuetzen powder at 50 yards, the rifle grouped well but about 3 inches left of center.  I moved the rear sight to the right a tad, and the rifle shot point of aim for the next half a dozen rounds.

I know the English rifle will shoot well if I get all of this sorted out.  I will repeat all of this and report back....and this time I will take pictures of targets and patches.

Thanks to all of you for your help.

[hanshi]

I'll second what's been said about barrels.  In my stable are at least 6 different makes of barrels including a couple of radius cut Rice tubes.  While the Rice barrels are mirror smooth out of the box every rifle I've had shot excellently with their various barrels and with no "breaking in".  I've even had similar service from imported ones.

[Bob McBride]

i agree, but i still maroon scotchbrite all my new bores as i find they load easier if thats done, so there are some number of microburs in most i would think. No probs with initial accuracy on any though.

[hanshi]

Another thought should have been in my post.  That is the Rice radius rifling needs thick patching to shoot well.  Also the thicker patching helps keep the bore cleaner during a shooting session.  I think Daryl posted about thicker patching earlier.  I use patches from .019" to .024" depending on the barrel and type of rifling.  Likely those cuts are not caused by sharp land corners in the bore but are caused by gas "blow-by"; IOW burns, not cuts.


Sorry.  IOW = in other words

[flinchrocket]

According to the Rice website,they pull a carbide bore sizing die through the bore, this results in a bore that is uniform and smoother than traditional lead lapping, they claim. 100 gr of 2f probably made your .012 patch look like grampa's underwear. I suggest you try a .020 or .022 patch with your .570 ball. Pick up a few and make sure they didn't tear or burn holes in them.
You also might want to start at 25 yds until you get on the paper.

[Marcruger]

Hi Dave,

My math looks like this.....

.58" bore  + .016" groove + .016" groove = .612" groove to groove in your Rice round-bottom grooved bore. 

Let's do some patch calculations...…

.570" ball + .012" patch  + .012" patch  = .594"   The result is that you are nowhere near sealing those deep grooves.  There is nothing pushing the patch into those deep grooves, even if it was thick enough....and it isn't.   

Let's try a different combo.....

.575" ball + .018" patch + .018" patch = .611"  This would be close to sealing.  Actually, a .019" to .022" patching would be better. 

I believe that what is happening is that with your .012" patch and ball combo, the charge is blowing right past your patch.  If you had a chrono, I'd bet you'd see some wildly erratic velocity numbers.  That will throw your balls in any number of directions, not just up and down.  Also, all of that blow-by is no-doubt fouling the mess out of the barrel with each shot. 

Seal that puppy up with some heavy 100% cotton dense weave canvas in the above weight.  I think you'll see a big difference. And better groups. 

I hope this helps good sir.   God Bless,   Marc

[kudu]

I dont want to be a stick in the mudd.
 Buttt.  to really really get the best from that gun , I think you need to shoot  a Teflon Patch of .020 and the same ball.  I can almost guarantee one hole groups at 50yd.

Most people on here  dont use Teflon me included  ( unless Im bench shooting) why you ask? because you Must swab after each shot. But its TOUGH and the big bores need tough patching when you start getting over 80 grs,fff
 That radius rifling needs a heavy Tough patch

So you need some tough canvas patching about .018-.020 Sail cloth would be great if you can find it locally, the weave in it is multi directional.
 
OR you can get regular patching without the Teflon coating from the same guys (The Minute Men. Teflon patching)

[Scota4570]

My old Dickies brand jeans are 0.033".  They make good thick patches. 

I experimented with a radius rifled 45 cal for a while.  It shot very poorly.   Mine had equal width lands and deep radius grooves.  It appeared to me that no loadable combination sealed the grooves.  The grooves were 0.016 deep.  That gives a groove diameter of .482".  With a .440 ball, that requires a patch of over 0.021" thick to fill the bore.  Say about 0.025" to get some compression in the grooves.  That makes the lands too tight, about 0.015" compression.  The ball has to give way to make that happen.  Loading became unmanageable, it required a mallet and a steel rod.  I tried smaller balls and thicker patches to no avail.   I gave up on it and scrapped it.

An ordinary Green Mountain barrel on the same rifle makes very tight groups. 

[Marcruger]

I too use The Minute Men patching Kudu. I was taught using teflon, but converted to Daryl’s method of wet patching. Wiping between shots packs all the grunge to the bottom of the bore, UNDER the charge. That leaves a big buildup with each shot. I also found a wet patch goes down easier. One last thought- teflon has no known solvent. How do you clean it from the bore?  Everyone has their own method, and no disrespect intended. God bless, Marc

[kudu]

Marcruger:  Ive noticed the same.   Benchrest shooting is like Religion hard to talk about?

If you go to a large line shoot you see it all. But they all seem to be using Teflon Patching. Just a different process with some.  False Muzzles and drop tubes etc.

All my guns have a flat bottom breech,  using Teflon , ( I only have one gun that uses it ) I swipe with a barley damp patch once down turn the patch over one down and out - done.
Essentialy  4 swipes if you count the down and then the out.

I know one guy that just uses a bronze brush in and out.

as far as cleaning the bore of teflon I never had a problem.

But my normal Guns I do the wet patch load, I shoot on several leagues and enjoy that more than bench shooting anyway.

[ScottH]

Dave,
 I have some patches I cut from cotton twill I got at JoAnne Fabrics it measures a bit over .018.
I also have some, from white denim I think is known as 10 oz, and it measures a bit thicker than the twill but is softer.
I'd be happy to mail you some dry samples of each to try if you would like, send me a PM.
Either of these will shoot with out holes or burn through in my Hoyt .54 caliber barrel with 80 - 90 grains of Swiss 2F. I use Track of the Wolf - Mink Oil grease for patch lube.
Scott

[Daryl]

Material is interesting. This last batch of 10oz denim I got, washed twice, measures .020" compressed hard in my calipers.
Previous 10oz. measured .0225".  The new stuff seemed to shoot OK in the .69 with a slightly hard alloy and .682" ball. A
2lb. block of hard bullet alloy got into my pure 20 pound pot, it appears.